Overwhelmed
by Pivot
Summary: Armada: Tidal Wave is not best pleased with his new station in life.


_Another of these little POVs, and you know you have too much free time on your hands when you start coming up with things like this. _

_Thanks to everyone who reviews these things. We aim to please. Honest._

_Special mention to ckret2, who gave this a once-over for me, thus reducing the likelihood of silliness slipping through the net of edits. _

_This is version 2 – the cut, less, uh, English-professory-sounding one. (blinks, looks around) So, uh, yeah…_

_(Squeaks) Give me Armorhide or give me death! (scuttles off)_

* * *

**Overwhelmed **

If.

I know that word. I can think of a lot of ways my life might have been made… easier… if they had been possible. Less difficult. Simpler. _If._

_If_ I had understood what he wanted, I might have been able to do better. _If_ I could have controlled myself better, _if_ I had focused better, maybe all of this wouldn't have been so hard to cope with.

If I could only understand what he wanted…

Or perhaps if someone had asked what _I_ wanted. It might not have been so hard if I had agreed to it.

But nobody asks me any more.

I didn't even _know_ about it, was hardly aware that such a thing was possible. I'm sure he wasn't expecting it, either. It wasn't so bad the first time, mostly because I had next to no idea what was going on. I obeyed Thrust out of instinct- _he_ knew, surely, must have known, was halfway through before I realised what I was doing. By the time it had sunk in, the whole thing was already over.

It was harder the next time, knowing what was happening. It got worse. Each time it became harder to turn around and comply, each submission more repulsive than the last… We weren't ready for it, had no warning, no idea that this could happen; we didn't stand a chance.

I know _he_ thinks of me as little more than a tool, of no consequence but for my power. I don't mind that so much. He got the wrong impression, and there's not much I can do about it. He believes I'm simple-minded, that I'm slow-witted and can't control myself. Needless to say, that isn't true, but I know why he thinks it is.

We're not well matched combiners. Some mistake brought us together, incompatible as we are, some twisted accident when the connections were being designed, failures to take into account certain incongruities in our forms.

I am no technician, but even I can understand what they did not. I am a true combiner; he is… not. I do not surrender my power to him, becoming a mere attachment, as Minicons do: I open my mind, too. It's not a normal powerlink: how could anyone expect it to act as one? Oh, it's no gestalt-combination, but it's there, and I can't help it; it's what I was designed for, necessary for me, with three component bodies.

He, though… he wasn't designed with such things in mind. - I wasn't used to combining with another mind, but he just had no way of dealing with it. At least _I_ was able to handle it.

But he wasn't, and the problem lies with him. He was supposed to have control of our form, but he had my mind there, too, and I was the stronger, the more powerful: not because he was weak, but this was my domain. He didn't even know my impulses and wishes were manifesting in his – our – actions, not the first time, but later he did. He could never handle it. I'm used to controlling three bodies at once; in one I am very… purposeful.

Well, if he hadn't understood before why I was named, he did then, I guess…

To him, I must seem single-minded, unstoppable in my course but for his rule. Even now, the effort it takes to keep control makes the whole process more trouble than it's worth. He doesn't call on me much, or for very long, disconnecting before his will is weakened too much. Otherwise, he doesn't mention our combining at all.

I don't blame him. I'm glad. I almost wish there wasn't this… distance between us, though - not that I don't keep it as much as him. I don't see that we could ever be any different, not as things are.

…I wasn't ready! I couldn't… couldn't... _combining_ _with another_ _mind_? With a stranger? With _him_? We would never have been a match if anyone had thought for even a moment! We just aren't cut out for it! _He's_ overcome by the combination, hates the idea of helplessness, I think, can't abide the sensation of my mind in the same body…

As for me… agh, how to explain to someone with a single-part form? For so long, the only combination I knew was my components into my larger, transform-capable mode. The only combination partner I had was myself. Now, it's difficult to escape the feeling that in some way, he's a part of me. He _isn't_, I _know_ that! But it _feels_ like he is, like he's meant to be! If I were to combine with anyone, I think, it would have to be someone able to deal with it, someone I wanted it to be, someone who was ready for it and when _I_ was ready for it. I can't help it; I just feel as though a combination partner (at least, my kind of combination, gestalt-like) is supposed to be… important. Special. Whatever!

…But this isn't even that kind of powerlink. It's unimportant, doesn't matter. And I still _feel_ as if it _should_ be…

And how do you cope with feeling an unwanted connection with someone you don't like all that much, because of a meaningless 'partnership' – if it can even be called that. Worse when that someone is a person you see every day, fight with every other, must… link up with… every other battle.

And still worse, ten times worse, a thousand times, when all of this is _not_ the handiwork of some obscure, unknown, anonymous technician or scientist or other lucky, nameless fool. When the person responsible is one of the very few that you might go so far as to consider a friend. When _they still have no idea_ of what they have done, and you can't bring yourself to tell them… or have no idea how to…

Where to begin? How to put such confused emotions, such increasing listlessness and bitterly edged frustration, into words? And how to tell Thrust anything at all?

Sure, he didn't realise what he was getting me into. _Couldn't_ have known what it would do to me…

It still _feels_ like betrayal.

…But who cares what I feel, or what I want to say?

Even if I explained, even if somebody listened, what would, what _could_ change?

Nothing, of course. Thrust has his uses, but he can't talk sense into deaf audios. _He_ –my 'partner' (a hideous joke, that) – would and will call on me when he chooses, will forever treat me like the senseless attachments he expected me to be, will always be incapable, I think, of adapting to our combined state (but then, really, so am I).

And time and time again, I will turn, heed the summons of my master (or is it the other way round…?) and obey, bending to his will to turn our collective power on our enemies. Each time without complaint or question, each time as though it doesn't hurt at all.

And each time wonder: which of us - foe, commander or minion- is the more overwhelmed?


End file.
